Rush by Eve Silver. Here's what Goodreads has to say: When
Miki Jones is pulled from her life, pulled through time and space into
some kind of game—her carefully controlled life spirals into chaos. In
the game, she and a team of other teens are sent on missions to
eliminate the Drau, terrifying and beautiful alien creatures. There are
no practice runs, no training, and no way out. Miki has only the
guidance of secretive but maddeningly attractive team leader Jackson
Tate, who says the game isn’t really a game, that what Miki and her new
teammates do now determines their survival, and the survival of every
other person on this planet. She laughs. He doesn’t. And then the game
takes a deadly and terrifying turn.

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz. I wasn't sure what to expect from this book, but no matter what I was thinking, this novel was even better than I could have imagined. Told in a unique format, the storyline circled around rather than progressing in a strictly linear fashion, which would not work for all books but was phenomenal here. From the background given on Oscar's family to the perspectives of those around him and finally to Oscar himself, every part of this book was emotional and moving. The story is both brutally realistic with its ties into the reign of Trujillo and somehow almost dream-like with its treatment in other areas, but all in all, I loved every moment of this.

Recommended? Absolutely!

American Gods by Neil Gaiman. You know those books that are chock full of those passages where you have to stop and read them over and over again because the words are so beautiful and so unsettling and so true that you need to ingrain them in your memory? That's this book, and that's why you have to read it. I won't say that the plot was absolutely perfect or all the characters absolutely wonderful (although I did love Shadow), but this is a profound book. Not a perfect story, no, but inventive, creepy, and beautiful. This is the kind of book you want to read with post-its in hand to mark down the best passages for posterity.

Recommended? No, if you're looking for a great story. Yes, if you're looking for spectacular writing.

Review: No one sees the Nobodies: they're forgotten as soon as you turn away. The Institute finds
them and takes them away for training, but an
untrained Nobody is a threat to their organization - and threats must be
eliminated. Claire
has been invisible her whole life, missed by the Institute’s monitoring, but now they’ve sent Nix to remove
her. Yet the moment he lays eyes on her, he can’t make the hit - and suddenly, they're both threats to the Institute.

First of all, don't forget to enterthe giveaway for this bookthat's going to close soon! And now, onto the review - NOBODY had a very cool concept behind it, which I loved. The idea of people who are metaphysically altered so that no one notices or remembers them and then using them as assassins is intriguing, and I especially enjoyed the exploration of what kind of emotional effects this has on a person. However, I did feel that at times, the emotional aspect was emphasized too much as to almost feel like the characters were excessively complaining.

That's not to say that the emotions took away from the pacing of the book, though, which was excellent. The narration of the book made reading it smooth and easy, and the suspense ratcheted higher and higher as I feel deeper through the pages. In general, the pacing was fast when it needed to be while able to fall into a slower tempo to explore the feels.

But let's talk about the feels now. I have to say, this was the one part of the book that I was, shall we say, not such a big fan of. One of the biggest pet peeves I have in young adult books is insta-love romance, and this novel certainly had that early on in the story. Just a few hours after Nix and Claire met, it was like they had this magical connection and fell deeply in love. While I understand that it makes sense for them to be compelled to each other, the romance was just not believable for me and detracted from the book.All in all, NOBODY featured a fascinating concept that's sure to pull in readers and keeps your interest up through an engaging and fast-paced plot. I did wish for a better romance because that was the big aspect that stopped the book from being as good as it could have been, but if you're willing to overlook that, there is a great story waiting between the pages.

Severed Heads, Broken Hearts by Robyn Schneider. Here's what Goodreads has to say: Golden boy Ezra Faulkner believes everyone has a tragedy
waiting for them—a single encounter after which everything that really
matters will happen. His particular tragedy waited until he was primed
to lose it all: in one spectacular night, a reckless driver shatters
Ezra’s knee, his athletic career, and his social life.

No longer a front-runner for Homecoming King, Ezra finds himself at
the table of misfits, where he encounters new girl Cassidy Thorpe.
Cassidy is unlike anyone Ezra’s ever met, achingly effortless, fiercely
intelligent, and determined to bring Ezra along on her endless
adventures.

But as Ezra dives into his new studies, new friendships, and new
love, he learns that some people, like books, are easy to misread. And
now he must consider: if one’s singular tragedy has already hit and
everything after it has mattered quite a bit, what happens when more
misfortune strikes?

Here's what Goodreads has to say about Nobody: There are people in this
world who are Nobody. No one sees them. No one notices them. They live
their lives under the radar, forgotten as soon as you turn away.

That’s why they make the perfect assassins.

The
Institute finds these people when they’re young and takes them away for
training. But an untrained Nobody is a threat to their organization.
And threats must be eliminated.

Sixteen-year-old Claire has been
invisible her whole life, missed by the Institute’s monitoring. But now
they’ve ID’ed her and send seventeen-year-old Nix to remove her. Yet the
moment he lays eyes on her, he can’t make the hit. It’s as if Claire
and Nix are the only people in the world for each other. And they
are—because no one else ever notices them.

And here's what it says about Every Other Day: Every other day, Kali
D’Angelo is a normal sixteen-year-old girl. She goes to public high
school. She argues with her father. She’s human.

And then every day in between . . . she’s something else entirely.

Though
she still looks like herself, every twenty-four hours predatory
instincts take over and Kali becomes a feared demon-hunter with the
undeniable urge to hunt, trap, and kill zombies, hellhounds, and other
supernatural creatures. Kali has no idea why she is the way she is, but
she gives in to instinct anyway. Even though the government considers it
environmental terrorism.

When Kali notices a mark on the lower
back of a popular girl at school, she knows instantly that the girl is
marked for death by one of these creatures. Kali has twenty-four hours
to save her, and unfortunately she’ll have to do it as a human. With the
help of a few new friends, Kali takes a risk that her human body might
not survive . . . and learns the secrets of her mysterious condition in
the process.

Matteo Civaschi has created two minimalist movie posters summarizing the plots of book-to-movie adaptations that I thought were very clever! It's amazing how he summarized them with so few images. See if you can guess what movies they are before you see the titles...

Review: The day after anonymous blogger Str-S-d wishes the popular girl would die, Lucy vanishes, tearing apart the world of Madison, Lucy's friend and the last person to see her alive. When two more popular students disappear after their names are mentioned on Str-S-d’s blog, the residents of Soundview panic. Meanwhile, Madison receives anonymous notes warning that she could be next. The clock is ticking.
Madison must uncover the truth behind the mysterious disappearances...
before her name appears in Str-S-d’s blog.

WISH YOU WERE DEAD was just the kind of psychological suspense I love to read. The plot was immediately compelling, grabbing the reader from the first page and refusing to let go through the end. The further you go into the book, the faster the pace picks up, until you reach the point where you're basically flipping pages as quickly as you can to find out who the killer is and why they're on this mission. And let me just say - the big reveal does not disappoint. Of all the characters in the book, it truly was the last one I expected, just as should be in a good mystery.

One aspect that I especially liked was the narration. Although Madison wasn't really a go-getter kind of character, it didn't bother me for two reasons: the first is that I was content to see the plot unfold through her eyes and the second is that her narration somehow perfectly complemented the book. Usually you would expect a certain tone from such a dark book, and while the serious parts were serious and the creepy parts were creepy, Madison's narration took a more light-hearted approach than you might anticipate - and it worked.

The only part of the novel that truly bothered me was the romance. I always seem to have quibbles with this in books so this really could just be me, but the romance seemed like something that was just sort of hastily shoved into the plot for the sake of having a romance. I found Tyler more tiresome than enchanting, and frankly, I couldn't understand why Madison didn't feel the same way. All in all, WISH YOU WERE DEAD was an excellent young adult suspense novel that I would rank high for its intriguing plot concept and shocking mystery reveal. I only wish that the romance was better, but the narration and cool plot more than make up for this flaw. I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys young adult thrillers but doesn't want something that would make them scared to go to sleep.

Something I've been wondering about for a while is the subject of cursing in novels because it often seems to be a different story from cursing in real life. In general, I curse out loud only when under the most extreme of conditions; it's not that I think it's necessarily immoral (although I know some do, and that's a valid position too), but I think it's one of those things that's most effective in moderation. Curse words are those that hold a lot of negative strength but if they're always used to express minor bad things, then that defeats their purpose. Of course, that's my personal stance and I don't judge those who either curse all the time or not at all.

However, novelizations are different because in books, the writing is all in the voice of a character, be it directly through dialogue or in first-person narration. Cursing is sometimes necessary depending on the character - some personality types are just more inclined to curse and an author would be remiss to include that if that's the case. So, most of the time it's fairly clear whether to have a character curse or not and it's also clear why a character who might curse once in a while shouldn't drop an f-bomb every six seconds.

But what about the characters who would, if they were living, breathing people, drop f-bombs every other word? I'm still of the position that cursing should be used in moderation. Just as you don't need to show every single possible detail of a character in excruciating detail for a reader to know him or her, you don't need to have the character curse all the time for the reader to get the idea. Otherwise, it can become numbing and lose its effectiveness, which fits in with my philosophy on cursing in real life.

Reboot by Amy Tintera. Here's what Goodreads has to say: Five years ago, Wren
Connolly was shot three times in the chest. After 178 minutes she came
back as a Reboot: stronger, faster, able to heal, and less emotional.
The longer Reboots are dead, the less human they are when they return.
Wren 178 is the deadliest Reboot in the Republic of Texas. Now seventeen
years old, she serves as a soldier for HARC (Human Advancement and
Repopulation Corporation).

Wren’s favorite part of the job is
training new Reboots, but her latest newbie is the worst she’s ever
seen. As a 22, Callum Reyes is practically human. His reflexes are too
slow, he’s always asking questions, and his ever-present smile is
freaking her out. Yet there’s something about him she can’t ignore. When
Callum refuses to follow an order, Wren is given one last chance to get
him in line—or she’ll have to eliminate him. Wren has never disobeyed
before and knows if she does, she’ll be eliminated, too. But she has
also never felt as alive as she does around Callum.

Review: Celia Reynolds is the
youngest in a set of triplets, and while her sisters are powerful, all she
can see is the past, which seems so insignificant -- until she
meets Lo. Lo doesn't know who she
is, or was. She clings to shreds
of her humanity, even as she's tempted
to embrace her dark immortality. The two form a
friendship, but soon they find themselves competing for the affection of a boy, Jude. Lo wants more than that, though. According to the others, there's only one way for Lo to earn back her humanity: persuade a mortal to love her - and steal his soul.

I genuinely enjoyed this novel, as I have with this author's previous books (she's basically an auto-read for me, now), but for much of the story, I found myself alternating between "this is so cool!" and "this is so cliche!". The "cool" aspects definitely included the premise because I just loved the concept of the so-called ocean girls. It was mysterious and suspenseful, not to mention delightfully creepy, to read about their slow transformation from human to monster.

And when I say suspense, I do mean suspense. It was actually difficult to put this book down, which is how you know you're reading a good book. A book you like will capture you while you're reading it, but a truly good book will capture you even when you're not - and that's what FATHOMLESS did. Even at the parts where I didn't like certain characteristics of the book, I still had that overarching urge to know what's going to happen next, what the secret behind the mystery is, if everything will end up okay.

As for the cliche aspects, though, I did think that the ultimate mystery reveal was somewhat... disappointing. The story was building up so much, and maybe my expectations were just getting raised too high, but it just wasn't as super-amazing-awesome-cool as I thought it would be. I also felt that the romance was very traditional, very young-adult. Not that there's anything horribly wrong with that, but I'm always on the look-out for romances that are different, and this was not one of them.Still, I very much enjoyed FATHOMLESS and continue to hold the same appreciation for Jackson Pearce's wonderful fairy tale retellings. I absolutely loved the suspenseful nature of the story and the charged concept behind it, and though I did wish for a better plot twist and more in the way of a unique romance, I highly recommend this to any fans of fairy tale retellings or of the author's previous books.

Review: Sophomore year broke
Clementine Williams’ heart. She fell for her best friend’s boyfriend and
long story short: he’s excused, but Clem is vilified and she heads into
summer with zero social life. Enter her parents’ plan to spend the summer on their sailboat. Then she meets James at
one of their first stops along the river. He and his dad are sailing for
the summer and he’s just the distraction Clem needs. Can he break down
Clem’s walls and heal her broken heart?

UNBREAK MY HEART was the perfect feel-good book to read during Hurricane Sandy. While I was curled up on my couch freezing under mountains of blankets, this adorable summer story kept me warm with its numerous references to sunshine and of course, the cute romance. Of course, this is definitely more than just a stereotypical chick flick because the characters do truly have dimension, and Clem's growth from beginning to end was certainly well-written.

Starting with the good, the romance was just what you would expect - which is, by no means, a bad thing. It was sweet, slow-paced, and while maybe not totally swoon-worthy, I'm sure none of us would protest having a James or the female equivalent in our lives. I did feel that it was the slightest bit cliche because, let's be honest, we've all seen this kind of storyline quite a bit in our YA fiction experiences, but it was far from being irritatingly so. Predictable, yes, but still good? Yes!While I really did enjoy this book, there was one aspect that did kind of annoy me, and that was, well, the drama. Of course Clem was going through a heck of a lot of trouble and I sympathized with her, but she was oftentimes so melodramatic that for much of the beginning, I thought she did something truly horrible. What she did was bad and she should've known better, sure, but it wasn't this horrendous crime that she should have to spend her entire summer moping around for. It just seemed like the entire time what she did was being spun into something much larger than it actually was.All in all, UNBREAK MY HEART was just what you look for in a feel-good book: lots of sun, a cute boy, and a girl who heals just in time for a happy ending. The romance was sweet and lovely, and while I did wish the story was perhaps not quite so melodramatic, I still enjoyed it and recommend this to fans of contemporary fiction.

Elizabeth Caldwell has perfected the art of pretending to feel
emotion, but it’s always a lie. After a near-fatal car accident when she
was a small child, Elizabeth lost the ability to feel any emotion, but
along with that loss she gained bizarre abilities: she can see the
personified Emotions she cannot feel. Fury, Resentment, Longing—they’ve
all given up on her, because she doesn’t succumb to their touch. All,
that is, save one. Fear. He’s consumed by the mystery of Elizabeth’s
past, consumed by her.

And then there are Elizabeth’s cryptic, recurring dreams, in which
there’s always love, and there’s always death. Haunted by these dreams,
Elizabeth paints them, knowing that they somehow hold the key to the
mystery of her past.

But a shadowy menace is stalking Elizabeth. Her survival depends on
uncovering the truth about herself. And when it matters most, she won’t
be able to rely on Fear to save her.

Review Policy

If you would like to contact me for a review, you can reach me at silverfalcon42[at]gmail[dot]com. Every review I write is honest, and I post it both here on this blog and on Goodreads. Although I primarily review young adult fiction of nearly every genre, I love middle grade fiction and am open to young adult nonfiction and select adult fiction. Ebooks in a Kindle-accepted format as well as physical books, and I accept ARCs.

A Note About Book Reviews

The first paragraph in each review is a summary taken from Goodreads.com with the wording tweaked. All other content, unless otherwise stated, is my own.